How do Goku and Vegeta compare to comic martial artist skill wise?

[Marvel-Studios Rep]

Lie would you considere them more skilled than Batman? Daredevil? Ironfist? Karate Kid?

[Sharpandpointies]

...I feel you need to define what you consider skill. If it includes 'cultivation of inner power and the manipulation of said inner power', then obviously they've got a lot going for them.

If it's 'fancy fictional pressure points', I suspect they're lower on the totem pole.

[FrenchGemini]

By real-world standards, they are skilled (obviously at striking, and even in grappling range, I remember at least Goku pulling off a sweet Ippon Seoi Nage on Broly in the latest movie, which counts as canon, right?). Like Sharp, I don't think they have significant pressure point stuff or the like. However, I remember Hit from Universe 6 using some of those, so they do exist in that setting.

[big_adventure]

The problem with considering their "skill" is that in their universe skill equals power, and they are really strong.

[Sharpandpointies]

That's just it. In the DBZ Universe, there's a matter of power/ki/whatever.

The problem is it gets murky when we consider SOME of their power comes from their heritage. I mean...it's folks like Krillin who are basically humans who have boosted themselves up to insane levels through nothing more than 'training', whereas all of the Saiyins/Half-Saiyins/Aliens already have some measure of power that is refined by training. Or increased by 'almost dying' and whathaveyou, which...isn't trained skill.

It's kind of like Gamora, that way.

So how do we resolve that?

[Nik Hasta]

Kind of down to the OP to decide what they are considering "skill" because it's a very broad concept.

Like... who is more skillful? Zoro from One Piece who can shoot beams with his swords, grow extra limbs and is strong enough to benchpress a house, through dint of training hard, or is it Makie Otono-Tachibana from Blade of the Immortal who is a "normal human," albeit impossibly fast and skillful by the standards of the real world and defeated her adult swordmaster brother in combat when he was 18 and she was 7 and she got there through a combination of training and being "born a prodigy,"

Zoro could crush Makie without thinking about it but Makie's skill is presented as more freakishly high in the context of her setting. Zoro is an incredible swordsman but he's still not the toppingest top tier in his world.

So... yeah, "skill" not only translates differently across different settings but also represents different things in said settings.

[Sharpandpointies]

Truth.

We did that one thread with comic book martial artists, and the OP (Cody?) insisted on 'everything equalized except skill'. Which kind of led to a massive discussion on 'What is skill? Because with Shang Chi, his speed comes from his qi development, which is part and parcel of his martial arts skill. With Cass, speed was just...trained in, ridiculous as it sounds. And then Karate Kid.' Etc.

Set the Destroyer's martial art incorporates training in time travel, for crying out loud.

Nothing really got resolved because, as you say, skill means a lot of different things depending on perspective AND setting.

[Nik Hasta]

Truth.

We did that one thread with comic book martial artists, and the OP (Cody?) insisted on 'everything equalized except skill'. Which kind of led to a massive discussion on 'What is skill? Because with Shang Chi, his speed comes from his qi development, which is part and parcel of his martial arts skill. With Cass, speed was just...trained in, ridiculous as it sounds. And then Karate Kid.' Etc.

Set the Destroyer's martial art incorporates training in time travel, for crying out loud.

Nothing really got resolved because, as you say, skill means a lot of different things depending on perspective AND setting.

Did a spot of digging and found this thread here, which seems to match.

[Sharpandpointies]

That's the one, yep.

[The Chou Lives]

The thing with Golu is his best skills, are training in
Many different ways and absorbing the information in greater ways aka he is good at training himself.

Vegita even in DBZ skill chart, is not skilled at all. He can grasp things. But he is more of the “ I must be the ultimate body builder” as opposed to actual martial artist. He always trains just to get stronger, agony runs circles in his training method and actually learns other tricks.

[grampagen]

If we're qualifying skill as 'can bridge the gap between objectively stronger characters and make it a fight' then Goku has decent feats in Super.

He took on Caulifla in his base form while she was SSJ, then her and Kale at the same while specifically one level of SSJ transformation below them until he stopped fooling. The peanut gallery in the ToP chalked it up to experience and more efficient movement, which was a pleasantly different explanation than typical.

Ultra Instinct in its initial state was also not something that increased his power output, but something that gave him greater spatial awareness or something like that.

Usually though, skill is conflated with strength, which is conflated with some emotional epiphany, usually the tried and tested Shonen Jump rage.

[Captain Morgan]

Yeah, I suppose Ultra Instinct is basically "perfect skill," within the confines of Dragonball.

[Jackalope89]

Yeah, I suppose Ultra Instinct is basically "perfect skill," within the confines of Dragonball.

Its your body moving on its own accord in either offense or defense, not needing you to actually move. Like a reflex.

[The Drunkard Kid]

As everyone else said, slip is depicted differently in different fictional universe, and it's hard to properly quantify how they compare with each other. Like, Goku can casually knock out highly skilled martial arts masters with a gentle neck chop, but would that real it count as a pressure point attack? And even if he does know other pressure point attacks, anyone worth using them on would be so close to his own skill and power that it's very unlikely it that he could land such precise attacks so easily, assuming that they even have a physiology that would be compatible with Earth pressure points (which Roshi knows How to do, IIRC, and Roshi taught the guy who initially trained Goku in martial arts).

While I think that Super kinda dialed back his skill (and general intelligence) a lot, with him having to relearn lessons that he had mastered decades ago in the previous series and making mistakes that he had learned not to do a long time ago (and let's not forget him somehow not knowing what kissing is, despite having learned to read from Rishi's dirty books and being married to a very affectionate romantic like Chi Chi; my headcanon is that he was just unfamiliar with mouth to mouth with regards to first aid and was confused as to why Trunks was smooching an unconscious woman), his general depiction is as being a legendary genius who can fight almost as well with his eyes closed as with them open learns fighting styles and techniques super quickly (often surpassing their own centuries/eons old legendary creators in how well he can use them), that the same technique rarely works on him twice, and as someone who has managed to intuit the ultimate divine martial arts technique without even being directly taught that it even existed.

[Cody]

Ki manipulation is supposed to be a martial art within itself so one could argue that greater knowledge of it equals greater skill. Personally I take his figuring out how to absorb the impacts of his and Beerus' punches as similar to Mantis dodging an attack by "riding the shockwaves" of said attack.